


The Ghost The Travelled the Universe

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: AU, M/M, Nico as a ghost, Will as some kind of undetermined psychic who can see him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-24 00:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16169888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: For centuries Nico has travelled. But when he gets trapped in an apartment he’ll have to find something else to fill his days.





	The Ghost The Travelled the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part as an October Writing challenge using prompts from madebypernille (here).  
> (unedited because I do writing challenges to a time limit (though this one went wildly over) and then just post straight to my tumblr)

Nico di Angelo was a wanderer. Always had been, always would be. His family had travelled a lot when he was young, and he’d caught the bug. His earliest memories were a series of bustling streets, bursts of colour, exotic smells, all blurring into a wave of unfamiliar that hit him in a tidal wave and nearly bowled him over. His mother had held his hand tight, because otherwise he would have been gone, wanting to see everything, do everything.

When his mother went he ended up with Bianca and then wandering became a survival technique. The world wasn’t particularly kind to orphans, though it wasn’t necessarily cruel either. Then Bianca was gone, snatched away from him when she’d run off with a group of older kids on an expedition to find food. Then wandering became running. He went all over, ducking and weaving, and taking in new sights but he no longer stared, open mouthed. He was distracted by the clawing feeling in his stomach, the empty feeling in his chest.

He didn’t really remember how he died. It was quick and painless in all honesty at first, he hadn’t even realised it had happened. He still wandered around the streets and people still ignored his slight, unkempt figure, as much as they had ignored him when he’d been a slight, unkempt, alive figure. It was only when he began to realise his stomach didn’t claw and clench after a day without food, that his throat wasn’t scratchy and dry. That people could walk right through him.

Not much changed for him at first. He still travelled. He made a game of it, following one person and then the next, crisscrossing across the country and then the world as he trailed people onto planes, boats, trains. He went up and down mountains, he saw desert sands and arctic tundras. He visited quaint villages with barely ten people to their name, and sprawling urban metropolises.

Bar stations and airports and other public places he never invaded any buildings, never followed anyone inside. It didn’t seem right, somehow and he didn’t feel the need. He didn’t tire, he didn’t need to rest. He could see anything he wanted to see, and he wanted to see everything. The afterlife seemed perfect.

And maybe sometimes a little lonely.

He didn’t know what was different about the apartment in New York. Maybe it was the occupant, a little old lady stout and kind-hearted who had a cat who followed her shopping. She was bent over, almost double with the weight of her shopping bags. She dropped one as she fumbled for her key, and Nico bent to catch it automatically, forgetting he couldn’t interact with the physical world anymore. Except the bag stayed in his hands, though he was so stunned he dropped it moments later.

The old lady saw him, thanked him. Told him he mustn’t mind, accidents happened and especially when you were her age.

People didn’t usually see Nico. People didn’t usually talk to Nico. And Nico couldn’t usually hold things.

He went up with the lady, just to check she was okay. He helped her put the groceries away. He stroked her cat, marvelling at the fact that he could stroke the cat if he really set his mind to it. And then he tried to leave.

And he couldn’t.

The door wouldn’t let him leave. He was trapped.

He didn’t panic at first. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe he’d be able to leave in the morning. Maybe he’d simply exhausted himself stroking the cat. He did feel odd. Tired. He hadn’t felt tired in years.

The next day he couldn’t leave either. Nico helped with the dishes and the house work.

He couldn’t leave the day after that either so he did some hoovering.

He couldn’t leave the day after that, or the day after that.

Before he knew it, it had been months. And in those months his old lady had slowly been dying. It came as a shock, when one rainy, grainy day she wasn’t there anymore. To Nico she’d seemed bright. Only afterwards did it occur to him that maybe that was because she was getting closer to his world.

Except she moved on, and Nico was still stuck.

He had been restless for months, and the empty flat made it worse. The old lady didn’t have any close family, a distant niece came to pack up her things. The cat had slipped out and didn’t come back.

Nico had exhausted himself trying every conceivable way to leave, when he’d screamed and shouted himself hoarse at the unfairness of it all, at all the places he hadn’t seen, at all the fact he just wanted to run and get out. And then a light in the hall turned on.

A scuffling sound, footsteps ringing on wooden floorboards. The dust that had settled on everything was disturbed, little clouds of particles swirling through the air glittering the shafts of light that came shafting through the open door. Nico sat up, slowly, warily.

A guy appeared in the doorway, blonde, about Nico’s age, or at least the age he’d been when he died. He’d lost track of how old he was now. Somehow it felt like the years had gone by in a flicker, in a rush of adventure after adventure that began to blur. When he tried to remember the memories poured away from him, sand through clumsy fingers. The world was different he knew that. It had changed but he hadn’t.

The thought frightened him.

“It’s alright,” the guy said. “I expected you.”

It took Nico an embarrassingly long time to figure out he was being spoken to. Other than his old lady, the few who saw him kept their distance. They certainly didn’t try to engage him in conversation. As a rule Nico tended to ignore the living.

“Sorry?”

“My great aunt? She left this place to me. Not sure why, haven’t seen her since I was a kid. But she wrote me a letter just before she died explaining you’d be here.”

Nico just frowned.

“I think she knew I’d be able to see you. She knew lots of things. Everyone was pretty sure she was a witch.”

“Are you?” Nico asked. So maybe his people skills were rusty but this guy’s great aunt had been happy to monologue to fill the space and no one else had ever expected him to participate in stimulating or even casual conversation.

The guy laughed and shook his head.

“I’m a doctor,” he said. “Kind of. Just started. Doesn’t really feel real yet. I’m Will.”

He waited expectantly.

“Nico.”

Will grinned and nodded. And then he left again, to get the rest of his stuff, and Nico was left to ponder that.

Will wasn’t a bad housemate so it wasn’t his fault Nico had itchy feet. His chest felt tight, the breath he didn’t have stifled. The rooms were too small, the world was closing in. He spent hours on end staring out the window while Will was at work, watching, clawing for something different that the plain walls of the apartment.

One day Will found him in one of his escape attempts. He didn’t say anything, just went about cooking dinner as he usually did, read a book as he usually did, highlighting passages and frowning faintly. He trapped his tongue between his teeth when he was concentrating. It was kind of sweet.

Suddenly he turned on the TV.

“There’s a documentary about New Zealand on,” he said. “You want to watch with me?”

Will had never seemed very interested in documentaries before. Nico shrugged, but he went to sit on the sofa and listened to the soothing voice of the narrator. Nico had been to New Zealand a couple of times before. He’d liked it, he’d always wanted to go back. Watching the scenes unfold on the screen was the next best thing, he supposed and after Will went to bed he didn’t stay as long at the window.

The next day Will came home with some cans of paint.

“The apartment’s a bit lifeless,” he said. “Uh no pun or offense intended.”

He opened up a can of bright, sunny yellow, prised off the lid of a warm, faintly tropical blue.

“I thought maybe we’d brighten it up.”

Nico touched a can of a dark, moody, comforting grey.

“What did you have in mind?”

Nico was getting better at interacting with the physical world but that didn’t mean he didn’t drop the paintbrush several times. Will just laughed at the paint splatters on the floor.

At the weekend they went shopping. Except Nico still couldn’t leave the apartment so they did it on the internet. Nico had been hesitant about helping pick out rugs and cushions and stupid ornaments and knick knacks to brighten the place but Will had insisted.

“You live here too.”

Nico’s stomach turned over. He’d almost forgotten he had a stomach, but looking up and catching Will’s gaze on him made him remember, and made him remember the feeling of butterflies invading it.

They couldn’t agree where to put a golden monkey statue. They’d both agreed it was hideous, but Will was two thirds of a way into a bottle of wine, and his tipsy giddy state had rubbed off on Nico and they’d both thought it would be a hilarious joke to buy it.

It was a lot bigger than either of them had realised.

“What about it the corner?”

“Blocks the light. By the TV.”

“I’ll get distracted when I’m trying to watch my soaps.”

Nico scoffed.

“Put it in the spare room,” he suggested. “No one goes in there.”

Will paused.

“You should,” he said. Nico blinked.

“Huh?”

“You should have the spare room. Your own space. I mean this is your house.”

Nico’s stomach did the flippy funny thing again. He couldn’t meet Will’s eyes because he didn’t know what he’d find there.

“Yeah,” he managed to mutter, more to end the conversation than to indicate any kind of agreement. “Okay.”

Documentaries became a part of their evening routine. And slowly Nico found he was spending less and less time at the window, less and less time running, jumping, crawling and pouncing at the door to try and let him out. He read books Will brought back from the library for him, books about far off places and out of reach corners of the world that even Nico hadn’t seen. He browsed the internet on the old computer in the corner. The documentaries he never watched without Will though.

They were watching one on Ancient Greece. The TV reflected a ghostly light onto Will’s face, reflected in his eyes. Over the last week or so Nico had found his attention often drifted away from the screen and over to Will.

Will sometimes noticed him looking and would catch Nico’s eye and smile. He suddenly did so, and his smile was brighter than usual, more knowing.

“It’s cool right?” he said. “Seeing all of the planet and history form just one place.”

Nico shrugged, but he couldn’t help the flicker of a smile.

Maybe there  _were_  other ways to travel the universe.

(And maybe one of them was in Will Solace’s eyes).


End file.
